LETTERS Godless criminality
From Mr Charles FitzGerald Sir: I would take issue with Mr Justin Marozzi's conclusion that the Milton Keynes murder 'probably tells us nothing at all' about 'modem society' (`Monsters of motiveless malignity', 4 March).
A couple of years or so ago my son and I were 'mugged' at the entrance to Herne Hill Station in south London at about 10 p.m. The muggers were four 'youths', of whom I was only able to glimpse one at all clearly for myself. My son had seen this gang lurking and shouted to me before I was actually pounced upon but too late to give me enough warning. They had consist- ed, as he had noticed, of two whites, one black, and one khaki; but the one who had gripped my neck in an arm lock before releasing me — the one I did see — was white. There could have been no racial motive; the big item of value I had on me, a gold wristwatch, was not taken; no insults were hurled at us. The gang had given us a fright and, perhaps because there were other people about in the street at that time, had just cruised on into the night.
Upon reflection, the predominant feeling derived from this brief, if unpleasant, experi- ence (in the event I was neither hurt nor too greatly shaken as it was all over so quickly) was one not so much of the motivelessness of the four youths in question, who had probably gone on to commit a more serious offence elsewhere, as of the motivelessness of 'modern society'. This may otherwise be translated as the 'Godlessness' of modern society; for where God is absent, why should there be a need for motive?
Of course, clever men, like the atheist Ludovic Kennedy, will say that there is no need to bring God into it. The difficulty for them, however, is that there are so few as clever as they are. The vast majority of us are of only limited intelligence and miss the guidance from above — the whispered voice of conscience — to direct and inform our lives. So when bored and with nothing better to do, why not go out and commit a mugging or two; or even, dare I say it, a murder?
Charles FitzGerald
Andover, Hampshire
Previous page
